Geraldo Rivera Booted from Duquesne Conference for Racy Photo

Duquesne University has withdrawn their invitation to celebrity journalist Geraldo Rivera to speak about the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy assassination, because of Rivera’s racy picture of himself that he sent out on Twitter in July, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“The administration felt that Mr. Rivera’s decision to post a nearly naked picture of himself on social media was inappropriate and inconsistent with who we are as a Catholic university and therefore asked the Wecht Institute to withdraw the invitation,” said Bridget Fare, assistant vice president of public affairs at Duquesne, in a statement to the media.

The Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law is hosting the symposium on October 17-19 to “convene many of the leading scientific, legal and investigative experts on the murder case that has fascinated and perplexed us for decades.”

Cyril Wecht, chair of the Institute's advisory board, told the Post-Gazette he was “disappointed” in the University’s decision. “You've got a 70-year-old man with a bath towel around his waist, although granted, it was below the umbilical level,” he reportedly said. “You go to a beach, there are people running on the streets every day, guys in their shorts. How could this bother Duquesne?"

Benjamin Wecht, who is organizing the conference, told the Post-Gazette that instead of Rivera, the Institute would host film director Oliver Stone, who directed the 1991 movie "JFK." Although positively reviewed by film critics, the movie was lambasted by JFK experts as inaccurate on many counts.

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